It seems difficult and even unfair to write here. I am not the survivor of any one incident of acute sexual abuse. But the confusion with which I live life makes it seem as though all I ever have experienced is inappropriate sexual contact.

My mother and I have been fused in many ways. Only recently have I methodically and systematically gone about undoing our unhealthy connection. She is a responsive person, but she has her own limitations, which is why I feel I must be precise and deliberate with each step.

I have two children and am separated from their mother. She is a survivor of sexual abuse by a pediatrician. She also never had a father since the age of two.

It has been helpful to read what others have said about their spouses who are not forgiving enough. I have read about how some spouses say they want to be in a relationship with someone who is not neglecting them. I feel I have neglected my kids' Mom since our relationship started. What I am trying to face is that I have neglected every woman I've been with, because I have not been willing to go through the pain of what happened with my Mom.

I really want a family. I think there is love between my kids' Mom and I. I see it. I feel it. It is something I have never known and is more than just the usual enticements of relationship. I am nurturing our relationship, but as I get closer, the horror and fear of intimacy overcome my senses. I get close to that feeling of wanting to take her in my arms and then I am frozen again in a place of disgust and loathing.

Lately I have been reading about everyday trance states. I realize that I have held my own mother in a trance for as long as I can consciously remember. This was more than a healthy, mother-son bond. What I find now is that I can't imagine looking her in the eye because it would be too frightening. If I am that frightened, I don't know how I could ever take someone in my arms and tell them that I love them.

Tonight the MOMC (the Mother of My Children -- a shorthand we use for each other) was talking to me about music. She was asking me about my early experiences with music. What I couldn't tell her is that I was terrified of playing music because it was a way that I both connected with my mother and invited her to cross boundaries with me.

For the past several months I have been sitting at the piano every day. At first I would imagine my mother creeping up behind me. It was an affirmation of the hell I lived in. Over time I have been able to access my feelings while playing and I do this every day to heal.

Another thing that is interesting about playing the piano is that I have taught myself how to play it all over again. When I was young, I stopped taking lessons because I thought the teacher was too much into reward and punishment for my progress. I may also have stopped because of the tension with my Mom that would increase when I did something musical.

As I have started playing again, I have had to train myself to use both of my hands in coordinated way. I know this might sound strange, but I think that this has been a way to overcome the split in my psyche. At any moment I feel like I could let go of the effort and go back to living a split, dissociated life. But I don't. I remember, and go on.

What I would like to do is share this with the MOMC, but I am afraid of her not understanding and chalking it up to another weird form of therapy, mostly because I did things like that for many years.

hey focusedbodyI am sorry for your pain. the relationship between a parent and child is the most precious and when it is wrong ...the most devastating. I don't know if you have heard the term covert incest but there are many books in the topic and you may find one helpful. As to the inappropriate touch, that is abuse and you did not deserve that. the same you have taken is not yours man it was given to you by one who was supposed to care for you and it was she who was wrong. I am glad you have come here for support, much of my abuse was at the hands of females though not my mother and it creates a special hell for us I think maybe for you most especially there are others here who share your pain man I encourage you to enter chat as you are able and talk to some of the guys you just may be amazed. be well Jeff

_________________________
Either I will find a way, or I will make one.Philip Sidney

The "special hell" is the world I live in. My body seems so used to it. It resists the struggle but each day I have decided to break....new ground, shall we say.

So I spoke to my Mom and then my MOMC today. Neither of these were easy, in their own way. I actually find it easier to begin to talk to my Mom because she has become used to my rants and raves. Only once has she said it was too much. Talking to my MOMC is another story. Although it went well, I was in great fear leading up to it.

This brings me to the shame again. When I am alone in the "special hell" it often feels easier to imagine myself a woman. I think this goes way, way, way back for me. If I look at pictures, especially those with my brother alongside me, I am making faces like a woman. It hurts me in my head to recall this.

I don't mean in my mind. I literally mean my skull. My mother especially liked to stroke my neck. And it is my neck that feels like a big gross mucousy thing, and never mine.

I have never actually disclosed this female side to my MOMC, although I keep intimating that it is there. I also acted in a musical as a guy who had this kind of identity problem and she saw it.

Today at the gym I saw the boy in me for a few short moments. He was looking back from the mirror and he was in a man's body. I'm hoping to see him again.

I know the female I made inside me was there to protect me growing up. The she in me didn't want the boy to experience the pain. Now I want to let something new happen. It's a slow process and I'm trying to keep it open to what is needed.

Needless to say, it really helps to hear from men. At some point I seemed to accept a belief that they couldn't be trusted. This of course obscured what was actually happening between my Mom and I.

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